


You Look Like a Movie

by semperama



Series: Tumblr Ficlets - Pinto [5]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 16:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/pseuds/semperama
Summary: After seven years apart, Zach runs into Chris at a party.





	You Look Like a Movie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the song prompt "When We Were Young" by Adele.

“Say cheese.”

Zach whirls around at the sound of his voice, but he’s met with a flash of light that has him momentarily blinded, blinking and shocked, his hand tightening around the glass in his hand in anticipation. It takes a moment for the spots to clear from his vision, but even so, he’s not prepared for Chris’s face to come into view. Chris lowers the camera slowly, grinning from ear to ear. His smile is just the same, though the lines at the corners of his eyes are deeper. He’s gone completely gray, and Zach is neither surprised that he doesn’t bother to dye nor surprised that it suits him so well.

But he _is_ surprised to see him, even though it makes no sense to be. He knew Chris would be here. He’s been preparing for it for weeks.

“Hi, Zach,” Chris says, still grinning. His voice is fond—and rougher than Zach remembers, rough enough to pluck at something deep in his chest.

“Chris,” he breathes, and then they’re hugging. It’s awkward, with Zach trying to avoid sloshing his drink down Chris’s back and Chris holding his camera out of the way so it doesn’t get crushed. Their bodies don’t fit together quite the way Zach remembered, but that's probably because he's built it up in his head. Chris has always been bright and tinged with fantasy in his memory, any rough edges that he might have had smoothed out by distance and longing.

As they part, Zach catches a whiff of Chris’s cologne, and his mind reels. It’s almost too much. He drains the last of his watered-down cocktail before he lets himself meet Chris’s eyes again. God, have they gotten bluer?

“How have you been, man?” Chris asks, just like he used to when they would only go a couple of months between seeing each other. It has been much more than a couple months this time. It’s been seven years. Seven long years. And somehow, other than the gray hair, Chris has hardly changed.

It isn’t that Zach hasn’t seen him at all. He’s seen every one of Chris’s movies—every fucking one—and he even snuck in to see the play he did off-Broadway. Twice, because the first time he found it so hard to catch his breath that he blacked out half of the third act. He was also in the audience when Chris won his first Academy Award, and he only barely managed to wait until he got back to the hotel and could lock himself in the bathroom before he dissolved into tears.

They have been at the same parties and events a few times too, but they more or less kept their distance. Chris stopped calling sometime after Zach got married, and Zach took the hint as gracefully as he could manage, putting on a brave face whenever friends asked about him, throwing himself into work and his new marriage with complete abandon. It couldn’t even be called a falling out. They had ended their relationship but a mutual decision, and Zach had hoped they could stay friends, but Chris drifted out of his life like smoke.

“Zach?” Chris asks, raising his eyebrows. Zach realizes he’s been staring silently for far too long.

“Sorry, sorry. I. I’m good. I’ve been good. You know, just…uh…” How do you sum up seven years to a man who should have been there for all of them?

“I heard about the divorce,” Chris says sympathetically. And of course he did. It was splashed all over the tabloids, complete with embarrassing photos of Zach crying and carrying boxes out to the curb.

Zach forces himself to shrug. “You know how it is in this business. It’s hard.”

Chris nods in understanding and averts his eyes. Zach neither needs nor wants his pity, so he clears his throat and pastes on a smile. “What about you though? You’ve been doing fantastic, from what I’ve heard. It’s been one great career move after another.”

“Oh, you know.” Chris grins bashfully and rubs the back of his neck, color flooding his cheeks. So he’s still a blusher. “I’ve just been really lucky. I’ve worked with some amazing people.”

Modest as ever, of course. Zach’s heart clenches. He wishes he could get a do-over on that hug, really hang onto him this time and savor it, since he may never experience it again. Chris expression flickers, and he steps closer, like he knows what Zach’s thinking.

“Zach, I’m sorry that I never…” He trails off, then looks down at his feet, his shoulders hunching a little. “Listen, do you want to go somewhere where we can talk? Catch up?”

The words are quiet and vulnerable, and Chris is scuffing his toe on the carpet, and Zach is so overwhelmed with nostalgia and tenderness and yearning that his throat closes up and his eyes start to sting. Slowly, so he doesn’t spook Chris, he reaches out and runs his fingers up the lapel of Chris’s jacket, then hooks one underneath it and tugs a little, until Chris looks up at him again.

“I’d like that,” he murmurs. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

He never thought he’d see Chris smile at him like this again, but he’s happy to be wrong.


End file.
